Commons Validator

A common issue when receiving data either electronically or from
user input is verifying the integrity of the data. This work is
repetitive and becomes even more complicated when different sets
of validation rules need to be applied to the same set of data based
on locale. Error messages may also vary by locale.
This package addresses some of these issues to
speed development and maintenance of validation rules.

Releases

Overview

Features

Validator provides two distinct sets of functionality:

A configurable (typically XML) validation engine

Reusable "primitive" validation methods

Your validation methods are plugged into the engine and
executed against your data. Often, these methods use
resources specific to one application or framework so Commons
Validator doesn't directly provide pluggable validator actions.
However, it does have a set of common validation methods
(email addresses, dates, URLs, etc.) that help in creating
pluggable actions.

Usage

In order to use the Validator, the following basic steps are required:

Create a new instance of the
org.apache.commons.validator.Validator class. Currently
Validator instances may be safely reused if the current
ValidatorResources are the same, as long as you have completed any
previous validation, and you do not try to utilize a particular
Validator instance from more than one thread at a time.

Add any resources needed to perform the validations, such as the
JavaBean to validate.

Call the validate method on
org.apache.commons.validator.Validator.

Documentation

Support

The commons mailing lists act as the main support forum.
The user list is suitable for most library usage queries.
The dev list is intended for the development discussion.
Please remember that the lists are shared between all commons components,
so prefix your email by [validator].